- Says only Congress can choose LP leadership
- No amount of intimidation can stop us – Abure
From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Monday, intervened in the Labour Party (LP) dispute, ordering the Apapa-led faction to vacate office or risk being arrested.
According to NLC President, Joseph Ajaero, if the LP loses its leadership, the Congress, which serves as the party’s trustee, must convene to decide the next course of action. He emphasised that no one can take over as new leadership without Congress’s approval.
Ajaero spoke to journalists at the LP secretariat in Abuja before going into a private meeting with the party’s embattled national president, Julius Abure,
He claimed that the purpose of the visit was to rid the party of what he referred to as “rodents” trying to illegally enter their property and vowed that Congress will resist any attempt to sabotage the party with everything within its powers.
He said: “For some time now, we have not been visiting our house we decided to visit our house this afternoon after getting some information that there are some rodents trying to move into our house and we have come with some insecticide to fumigate the house from any rodents that are illegally trying to enter our property. So that is why we are here, incidentally, we didn’t see any rodents but we will comb around and see whether there are any. The LP is a child of circumstances. It began when we lost almost all confidence in the existing political parties and we felt that the LP will be the ideal political party that will represent our ideological persuasions. In other words, that was why the LP was formed. For anybody or group think that they can sabotage or derail our ideological move, we will resist them with the last drop of our blood. This party was formed by the NLC and TUC. This is our party. Nobody can come from the blues and declare himself as the chairman or secretary of our party without our consent. It is not done.
The Labour leader ordered workers to apprehend anybody causing trouble for the party that they come across and threatened to confiscate their property.
“Such people, if they attempt to come here next time, all their property, all their houses, their residential houses, we will occupy them where ever it is located. Then they will know that all that they have was given to them by Labour. Today, we say enough is enough. Never again will any human being enter here under any guise, under any order. Even if we lose our leadership, we have to meet as trustees of this party to decide the next line of action. For anybody to illegally declare himself either as chairman, secretary or anything, we urge all workers anywhere in the country, where you see such people, arrest them and bring them to us. The hour has come. The Bible says, “From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of God suffereth violence and violence taketh by it by force. Now we have come to take our party, we have come to establish our party. As the fastest-growing party, you can see that envy and jealousy are crippling in. The people that are pioneering this to sabotage us let’s announce here that we know your fathers. If you continue this way, we will go after your fathers. We leave it here until we finish our private discussion. Let it be known to the whole world that the NLC fathered LP and we will not abandon our child,” he added.
On his part, Abure said that no amount of intimidation or deceit would stop him from pursuing and reclaiming the party’s mandate which he said was given to them at the presidential elections.
“Let me appreciate the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) for this solidarity visit. I want to state here clearly that I remain committed to the struggle for a new Nigeria. I want to say that no man can stop an idea whose time has come.
“The time has come for Nigerians to take back their country. A new Nigeria I believe is possible and no amount of harassment or intimidation. No amount of falsehoods and no amount of falsified stories will derail us from our pursuit. We refuse to be distracted. We will continue to pursue our court case. We are in court because they stole our mandate so we will remain in court till that mandate is recovered. We will not rest on our oars until we reposition Nigeria for greatness,” he stated
Since the general elections, the LP has been engulfed in crisis. Recently, seven members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) announced that Lamidi Bashir Apapa, the LP National Vice-Chairman for the South, would take over as acting party chairman in place of suspended chairman Julius Abure. This move deepened the crisis that had already been roiling the party.
The NWC members, led by Apapa and Arabambi based their decision on the judgement of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court which restrained Julius Abure from parading himself as the National Chairman of the party.
Meanwhile, the party’s 36 state chairman has given Abure a vote of confidence to remain national chairman despite the court order, the party is now split between two sides.